eef's art blog

Return of the Zoo

2010-10-28T00:44:00.001-07:00

I went to the zoo again. I wasn't going to post these, but looking back at them, I think I actually like them. I went with JR Goldberg again, as well as my buddy Josh Kenfield. It was a moderately sprinkely day off and on, so there were moments were we had to take shelter. I also sort of got mesmerized by the chimps. They were amazing to watch, and I just sort of sat and watched them for a while. I probably could have got a whole other drawing done in that time. It always amazes me that I spend the whole day at the zoo from 10:30 to 5 and this is all I come up with. The time really flies.

First up... more gerenuks. The gerenuk area is nice and secluded and cozy and easy to draw at so we spent a good amount of time there. There were also these little pig/goat things. I can't remember what they were called, so I added one sort of being intimidated by all the wiggly, tall gerenuks.

Next I did a meerkat, and I pretty much cheated and put him in this cheesy pose.

The coolest thing about this visit is I finally got to see the gorillas. Every other time I have gone I have not seen them, and they're like pretty much basically my favorite animal.

As I said, I got pretty mesmerized by the chimps. I did manage to sketch a few of them though.

Last I did this little guy. It was the only one I did on the brown paper, which I think I should just do all my sketches on, but then I always get carried away.

That's it! A full day of sketching. I already can't wait to go do it again.

Ethan

A day at the Zoo part 2

2010-04-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

In case you missed my first zoo art blog, check it out.

Jenny Goldberg and I got to hit the zoo again finally and pick up where we left off. I didn't do any drawings I would say I like as much as that grumpy frogmouth owl I did last time, but I am pretty happy with these and felt I should share them... but first, here is a sketch I did of a couple of guys and a crab goat at a drink n' draw I went to last week. After that is the sketches from today... enjoy!!

Ethan

Axe Cop's temporary home

2010-01-28T18:07:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: The site is BACK so go to www.axecop.com if you were led here by Twitter. I will leave these links to the first 6 strips in case the site is slow from traffic, but keep in mind new episodes will be at the website and not at this blog.

http://img2.pict.com/0f/4a/91/2673859/0/axecop1.png
http://img2.pict.com/f8/62/bd/2673857/0/axecop2.png
http://img2.pict.com/e1/6e/cc/2673848/0/axecop3.png
http://www.pict.com/view/2673845/0/axecop4
http://img2.pict.com/1f/e6/d4/2673862/0/axecop0.png
http://img2.pict.com/f6/97/40/2673844/0/axecop5.png

axe cop zero comes after 4 because that's the order they were written in. Please keep the Axe Cop fire burning and share this one Twitter and Facebook.

-NEW EPISODES UP at http://axecop.com/index.php/ask (ask axe cop episodes 1-3)

Ethan

AXE COP 4!

2009-12-30T10:57:00.001-08:00

Axe Cop is back in a touching tale about family values. This one is a tear-jerker. I decided to change Malachai's credit to sole writer, because he really is... all I do is organize it into art. Enjoy!

you may also download the PDF here.

AXE COP interview

2009-12-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a video of me interviewing my five year old brother Malachai about the story for Axe Cop 3. You get an idea of our writing process here. Some of the details in the story were taken from other conversations, but I wanted to capture the kind of brainstorming we do and I also wanted to capture how Malachai pronounces avocado "aducado."

The Axe Cop comics are available on this blog in the previous two posts.
Axe Cop blog post one, and blog post two.

AXE COP 3!

2009-12-27T22:26:00.000-08:00

We did it. Axe Cop 3! This time Axe Cop and Dinosaur soldier get a new job. If you missed Axe Cop parts 1 and 2, it is a comic written by my 5 year old brother and drawn by me, you can see them in the previous blog post.

Here's the pages. You may also view the PDF.

At this rate I may need to give Axe Cop his own web page. Let me know if you want to see the saga continue into an ongoing web comic.

Also, stay tuned for a video with my brother showing the writing process.

Ethan

AXE COP!

2009-12-24T22:37:00.001-08:00

Since I have been visiting my family for Christmas, my five year old brother has been sharing with me his ideas for this hero named "Axe Cop", so I decided to start turning his ideas into comics. He are parts one and two. AXE COP!!

you can also see them in PDF format at:
www.ethannicolle.com/AXE-COP.pdf
www.ethannicolle.com/AXE-COP2.pdf

Quick Sketch Dump

2009-11-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

Was showing these off at Doug's today and decided I should show them to the 3 people who read this blog too. Just some sketches from the ol's sketch book. The faces were all real people in Barnes and Noble I drew one day with Val, except the one guy on the bottom right is Patrick Swayze from a magazine cover.

And that is all for now. If you haven't been to my web site recently (like since last night) you can also check out my TV show pitch PDFs.

www.ethannicolle.com

Waiting at Disney Sketches

2009-10-03T12:30:00.001-07:00

The other day I went in for a meeting at Disney and ended up waiting around for a good while, so I busted out my sketch pad I brought for taking notes and went wild with a ball point pen.

I don't know what any of these things really are. The top left is some sort of feminine crab alien. The one on the far left is some sort of retarded werewolf. The thing on the bottom right could be a rat-bug of some sort.

Whatever they are, I liked them enough to post them up, so there you go.

Ethan

the Naked Nutrino

2009-08-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

So I finally got my sketch book back thanks to Jenny. Last time we went to draw nudies I left it there on accident. So here is the model we drew last time. She was this asian girl with this massive neutrino mohawk:

So here is my page of quicker skecthes... each around 3 to 5 minutes. (click for the big one)

and here is the only longer 25 minute pose I felt good about, on the brown paper:

And there you have it. More nudies!

Mini Sketches

2009-08-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

I bought myself a little tiny pocket sketch book recently and have been doodling in it at random. I have used it for story notes, joke ideas, character designs, and just general sketching. I recommend carrying something like this around to anyone who is a write or artist. You never know what you will come up with. Here are some of my favorite things from my little mini sketch book. These are all done in a cheap little ball point pen.

Gone Zooin'

2009-08-06T00:07:00.000-07:00

Ah! Another adventure drawing naked things with Jenny Goldberg, my new goth-hipster homegirl from the fancy pants part of town. This time they weren't even humans! We went to the L.A. Zoo and stood in the hot sun drawing as many cool critters as we could. Turns out after 6 hours of drawing, we got kicked out because the zoo closed at 5. We had barely scratched the surface of animal nudity. So, this is the L.A. Zoo sketch safari, chapter one. We had a lot of fun, even though are flesh did get charred in the sun. My arms are all red an pomegranety.

OK. Well, the first thing we came to were the Meerkats. Jenny, with her fancy-pants iPhone, snapped this picture and twitpic'd it whilst we were at the zoo. Ah, technology. It was right there then now it's right there just like magic! Well now it's right here...

Here is a clearer, crisper, tastier version with marshmallows.

So then we moved on to the Flamingos. Or, simply "the Mingos." Did you know they're pink because they eat so many shrimp? I did! I decided to draw a serious one, then a knee slapper one. The knee slapper ended up being one of my favorite drawings of the day. Here is the twit-pic:

Now here she is in all her shrimpy pinkish glory:

Ah yes. So, next we drew an alligator, and the damn thing would not hold still. My alligator sucked, so I have chosen not to show it here (it also never got finished). But here is Jenny's gator, posing in front of the actual gator who is swimming away grumbling like an old grumpy gator:

After that we sat in the shade and drew some seals. I tried a few serious, fancy ones... and they just sucked. So I did this happy-retarded-naive seal and it's cute!:

After the seals we went and ate a 6 dollar chicken sandwich, a 9 dollar turkey sandwich, and a 6 dollar soda. Then dumped soda all over our hands, then dumped water all over our hands. After that, we came upon something truly awesome... a Tawny Frogmouth Owl:

I busted out the brown paper on this guy. I think we worked on him for a good hour. He sat right there, sleeping, only moving his head here and there. This, along with the flamingo, is my favorite of the day:

After that, not having known the time, or the hours of the zoo, we continued on to draw these gerenuks, which are awesome and long. Gerenuk means girrafe neck! See! They look like alien deers. There was even little baby ones. About 15 minutes into drawing this guy we got booted out by the Zoo cops. I took it home and finished it up, using a googled gerenuk image for reference:

Most of these are a mix of Prismacolor Verithin colored pencils, Faber-Castell brush pens, a small tipped Copic pen, and a crummy Presto!white-out pen. Also, a bit of photoshopping to add snazz.

I am still giddy! I can't wait for chapter two. Drawing animals is my bread and butter! Thanks for reading.

Ethan

Nudies and Ooglies

2009-08-04T03:01:00.000-07:00

Word up to the three of you who read this blog. I decided to dump some more sketch all over this place. I went to a seedy hipster art warehouse that smelled like the weed to draw nudies with Jenny Goldberg tonight (of Jellyfist infamy). She's a total hipster goth who draws awesome little nubby guys.

So this girl we drew sort of wore a naked Mary Poppins outfit... I really loved that movie when I was a kid. I guess she thought just plain ol' nakey was just too boring, so she wore a lil' hat and collar thing. Anyway, I just figured I'd post some of the art up. Hope you don't mind some boobs.

These were my warm ups... the smaller ones were 3-5 minute drawings, the one on the chair was 15.

Then I tried the brown paper, white/black pencil technique. This first one took 15 minutes...

This next one, also 15 minutes...

This last one was 20 minutes.

And now, just to offset all the seriousness and nudies, here are some more eefish sketches. I present to you a lizardy thing, a retarded bird, a babboon guy with flappy asses, a gopher beetle, and a demon bear.

Be well!

A thing with a gun riding a thing.

2009-05-23T12:51:00.001-07:00

Haven's posted any art in a while, so here's one...

SLG Creator Studio

2009-04-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

Want me to teach you mad skillz live and in person?! Of course you do. Come to San Jose on May 16th. Here's what's up:

Event Details

SLG Publishing continues it's succesful and informative Creator's Studio series with another day-long event on May 16th. Creator's Studio IV will feature panels on comics and their creation and will end with a live-drawing demonstration by the artist of the Eisner Award nominated humor series Chumble Spuzz Ethan Nicolle.

Our tentative panels for the this month's event include:

Preparing a Proposal - Taught from the SLG Publishing perspective, Dan Vado will go over what should and should not go into your written project proposal to a comics company. Also covered will be what to put into your portfolio and how to handle yourself when you are planning to show your work to editors at a convention.

Good Design/Bad Design - SLG Art Director Scott Saavedra goes over

good and bad design choices and how they apply to comics and graphic novels.

In addition to being SLG's Art Director, Scott is the creator of Comic Book Heaven, a book

series that looked at comics from the Golden and Silver Age with an eye towards examining the goofier aspects of those books.

Conjuring a page - Artists in semi-residence Ethan Nicolle sits down at his drawing tabld and demonstrates his drawing and storytelling techniques. This is an interactive demonstration, questions are encouraged. Ethan will show how he breaks down a page and take a page of script and show and explain his thought process for creating a finished piece.

Ethan is the Eisner Award nominated creator of Chumble Spuzz and is one of the funniest and most inventive creators to hit SLG Publishing in a long time.

The Creator's Studio seminar is not a how-to-draw class, a certain amount of proficeincy on the part of attendees is assumed. While some attention will be paid to the basics of drawing, for the most part this session will be devoted to storytelling and design. Recommended age for this seminar is 16 or older.

Buy a ticket for this event here.

uStream draw-cast 2

2009-03-24T00:10:00.000-07:00

Alright! I did another uStream show tonight and it was once again really fun. If you ever want to catch one, follow me on twitter or watch for an update on myspace or facebook. Here is what we came up with tonight...

This is a zombie armadillo eating an ice cream cone. The ice cream cone is very sad. I imagine the armadillo is pretty happy, though he can't show much emotion.

This is Tigerpus. He is half tiger, half platypus. I like him.

This is Rebracta. That is the name that was made up for this woman... man... troll thing. This character was created as people shouted out various features, like emo hair, big lips, fishnets, etc. The results were

The last image requested ended up being me in a bunny suit in a space suit. So that's what you have here.

Thanks again to everyone who participated and watched!

First U-Stream Draw-cast

2009-03-17T02:59:00.001-07:00

So, mimicking my friend Val, I decided to do a Ustream live video feed of me drawing in Manga Studio. As I drew, I had people in the chat make suggestions and I went off of those ideas. So for the first one, I asked for two animals and someone said girrafe and flamingo, so we ended up with a Girmingo:

Next, I had everyone watching start blurting out various features of a yet-to-exist character. Someone said batwings, then hook-hand, then bifocals, then squinty eyes, and we just kept going from there until we had this cuddly little guy who we named Hubert Bibbo:

For my final drawing, someone suggested a Wolf Turtle, and someone else asked for a unicorn, so I drew a Were-Turtle devouring a Unicorn:

And that was that. My first u-stream live draw-cast. It was fun. If you ever want to be a part of one, just try to keep track of me on twitter, or myspace. I will post when I am on. I may schedule something sometime, too, if there is interest. Thanks again to everyone who watched, chatted, and made it fun.

Ethan

I have a crappy website

2009-02-12T00:54:00.000-08:00

I needed space online to FTP myself stuff, so I bought my name dot com. I figured I would use my very minimal HTML skillz to put up a basic page that links to my various crap already on line in other places. Putting this up reminded me that I actually have an art blog I never update, so I am going to throw some art up here with no explanation whatsoever. Enjoy!

Johnen Vasquez Reviews Chumble Spuzz

2008-08-25T16:28:00.001-07:00

What you are about to read is one of the highest compliments I have ever been paid, and convenietnly it is typed up and posted in a blog, so I don't have to try to recollect it for you from a brief meeting at a comic convention. Johnen Vasquez, creator of some of my favorite works, includng Squee and Invader Zim, finished reading both Chumble Spuzz books, and wrote this long review, which not only had me blushing, but laughing out loud.

The review.

Thanks, Johnen, for this. You made my day. Or week. Maybe even month.

Ethan

Interview and APE CON

2008-08-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

I’m an APE Special Guest The APE (Alternative Press Expo) Convention will be in November, and cuddly little ol' me will be SLG's special guest this year. I feel very honored. I have never been to APE, but have always wanted to go, because I am an alternative comics-o-phile. Dan Vado, the founder of SLG is also the founder of APE, and it is one of the biggest celebrations of indy comics in the US, if not the world. So being one of the six special guests is quite a compliment.

Apparently I will get a panel. I am thinking about bringing some kind of prize to the few people who actually come to it. It will be my first panel ever, so I have to celebrate even if no one comes. Whatever happens, I think it will be fun. APE! Here's my descrption on the APE site:

Ethan Nicolle

Cartoonist Ethan Nicolle’s work features those lovable reprobates Gunther a nd Klem, whose stories are collected in Chumble Spuzz volumes one (“Kill the Devil”), and two (“Pigeon Man” and “Death Sings the Blues”). Nicolle lives in Portland, Oregon in an attic and tells us he’s one of those “little head, big body” type of guys.

Courtesy SLG Publishing

Besides all that jazz, here's an interview I did with JK Parkin at Newsarama.

FOUR NEW BOOKS at COMIC CON 2008

2008-07-18T20:21:00.001-07:00

Woopdee hoo!

I'll have four new books available at Comic con this year. They will be in limited supply. Here they are:

First is the most obvious, which I will be selling with my brother at the SLG booth, along with volume one:

Description:
Gunther and Klem return in two new tales from the warped and endearingly disturbed world of Chumble Spuzz! In their first adventure, Pigeon Man , Klem befriends a man who was raised by pigeons, but Gunther sells the pigeon man out to a local zoo for Feral Humans to buy himself a new robot. When Klem discovers that the zoo is only a cover up for an illegal underground feral-human fighting operation, he'll do anything to rescue his new friend from the inhumane zoo's cruel death matches. Also included is the tale Death Sings the Blues , starring the Grim Reaper himself! After a conversation with Klem about his recently deceased pet sea monkey, Death realizes all of the pain and suffering he has caused the world through taking away life, and unable to bare the pain anymore - he kills himself! When Death commits suicide, everything that has ever died begins to reanimate! Can Gunther and Klem stop the massive outbreak before the world expires from zombie overpopulation?

AND the new Reverend Mofo "Word of the Lord BIOTCH" Tshirt will be for sale:

Then, at the Bad Karma Booth:
Me and Eric's new creation, which should get some interesting reactions, stars Jesus Christ on a mission to kick ass.

Description:
THE SON OF GOD IS BACK.... but this time's different

Wars. Hunger. Genocide. For Jesus Christ, this is the view of Earth from Heaven.

But when the savior of mankind decides to go back in time and repair Earth, starting with the Holocaust, things end up easier said than done.

Then... these next two books are collections of art I have built up over the years. The first is my full collection on Far Side style gag cartoons. If you liked Chumble Spuzz you wil probably like this book:

Description:
Chumble Spuzz creator, Ethan Nicolle, collects over 10 years of single-panel gag cartoons, dating back to his days on his high school's newspaper staff, and later published in the gambit weekly in new Orleans. in the random and unhinged style of the far side, but without the cleverness or massive success, sumo poop pokes fun at everything, including farm animals, bowel movements, sumo wrestlers, maternity wards, and ninjas. anyone with a sense of humor is guaranteed a laugh, and anyone with a sense of decency is bound to be offended.

And lastly, I've compiled a large collection of sketches and commissioned art into this 112 page book:

Description:
A massive dump of sketches and art from various unreleased projects decorate 112 pages in this packed little sketch book from ethan nicolle. includes pages from the never finished "code of the juggernaut" comic book, lots of strange creatures, and a number of other pieces that have never been printed elsewhere.

Of course along with these, the Weevil will be available.

The Bad Karma books will be in shorter supply, so if you want one, don't procrastinate! I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing everyone who can make it to the con. See you soon!

Ethan

Drawing a page of Chumble Spuzz

2008-03-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

I decided to do a screen capture thingy. This is a page from "Death Sings the Blues" the short story in Chumble Spuzz book 2. This page took me 3 hours originally, it's sped up 16 times in this video. People usually put these videos to some kind of artsy electronic alternative music, I went with some old Stanley Brothers bluegrass tunes and a church song. I think it looks like I was drawing to the music.

This is all drawn in Manga Studio. This story is mainly narrated, and isn't going to have any panels- it's kind of collage style,so it's different from a normal page. As you can see, it has zombies. Here's the finished page (click to enlarge):

Let me now what you think of this. I may post more if I have time.

Another Art Dump

2008-03-06T01:26:00.000-08:00

Here's another quick art dump... these are some sketches from the ol' sketch book for a new project I'm submitting to Cartoon Network (fingers crossed!)...I found this little guy in an OLD sketch book from high school. This is how Gunther from Chumble Spuzz used to look. A lot more ugly and scary...

Below are some concept drawings for the 2nd Chumble Spuzz book, which is about a zoo that contains people that were raised by different animals. These are just some ideas I came up with for human/animal things that are pretty ridiculous.

This was an attempt at a cover for the book, done in Walnut Ink. While I like it, it didn't work in color very well. I'd be willing to sell it if anyone wants to make an offer:

And this is a concept sketch for the short story that will be in Chumble Spuzz book 2 called "Death Sings the Blues". I kind of mixed the Grim Reaper with Robert Johnson. The story is sort of a tribute to old blues music, and zombies.

There you have it. My art blog bowels are now relieved.
-eef

Some more recent stuff

2008-03-06T01:18:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted up any of the fun stuff I've been working on lately, so here's a few of the drawings I've been doing for the Inuit Mythology Project. The first set I did for them was colored pencil drawings. I've since done about 80 ink drawings for them. These are some of my favorites...

I love this job because it stretches me to draw things I wouldn't have otherwise tried drawing, and I also get to expolore my digital inking techniques. These are all digitally inked, except for the one pencil drawing I included, which I scanned in from a sketch book. The final is digitally inked, but i really liked the look of it in pencil.

Chumble Spuzz Was in Wizard!

2008-01-05T11:31:00.001-08:00

So yesterday i was talking to Eric on the phone, and he said that is buddy Brett saw a little blurb about my comic in the most recent copy of Wizard magazine. I didn't truly believe it. I have a self-defense mechanism that has been reinforced by the cruelness of female-kind and my own stupidity to not react to anything until you know 100% if it's true. For you non-comic people, Wizard is the Sports Illustrated of the comics world. There is no bigger comic magazine. It would be like if Lunaractive got a small blurb in Rolling Stone.

So I eagerly drove to Fred Meyer where I usually buy Wizard magazine, if I'm in the mood. They were out of them. So then I drove to Haggen, the yuppie grocery store, and found it. I opened it and flipped through every page and found nothing. I went through it a second time.

Nothing.

Then an ad catches my eye for the next issue of Wizard which hits comic stored December 26th and news stands January 8th. So I had the wrong issue. It was about 8:30PM. I sped northbound toward southeast Portland to try to make it to Guapo comics and coffee, since the book wouldn't be available on news stands for a few more days. They used to close at 9:30PM when I lived nearby (a few months ago).

When I arrived, they were closed. They changed their hours. As it turns out, if I had just left and gone straight to Guapo I would have had it. I just missed them.

So I went to bed, and this morning I woke up and headed for the comic store in Milwaukie- Things From Another World. They had the issue and I nabbed it up, and went into my car to find it. Sure enough, there it was. In a little tiny section along the bottom of one of the pages, there's a featurette where the headline reads "INDIE WATCH '08: Check Out These Small Press Must-Reads." Mine was the first on the list. Here it is...

I know that if you have never really been into comics this isn't that big of a deal... and even then, it's not THAT big of a deal. But still- Wizard magazine hardly touches comics that aren't super mainstream. In fact, they seem to cover comic related film and television more then comics anymore. This magazine is everywhere in the country... I used to buy it at McKay's market in Lakeside. I remember getting a subscription when I was in highschool. So I'm excited that the most widely distributed and read comic news magazine there is sent a blurb about my book and tagged it as a "must read." That's cool.

inked in walnuts

2007-12-30T16:53:00.001-08:00

note: originally posted on my MySpace blog.

2 Years ago on Christmas, when my brothers Noah and Isaiah, and I, went to visit our Dad, Step mother Deela, and 3 siblings- Deela bought us all sweaters at salvation army and had us go to Wal Mart for a family picture:

This picture has been a favorite of mine ever since. It's a great depiciton of us, and the kind of joy we experience the rare times we get to all be together. It also shows how often we practice odd facial expressions in front of mirrors.

With my computer dead I was at a stand still with work. I had a couple days before we were to head off to Moses Lake to visit the family, and I decided at the last minute to try to do some walnut ink renderings as Christmas gifts to my family.
For Dad and Deela, I did this walnut ink rendition of the above photo:

I tried for some more traditional portrait style paintings for each of my young siblings- the first here is Megan. I actually drew two small sketches, a small inked draft, 2 large detailed pencil drafts, one fully finished ink draft, and then a total redo of the final pencil and ink drafts- which is the piece I finallty settled on with Megan. She is really hard to capture, but I'm at least happy with this one.

I had a photo of my little brother Malachai which I loved, so I tried to capture it in this painting. He's playing with this toy monkey that I got him last year for Christmas. I feel I didn't capture his likeness very well, but it wasn't so bad I redid it (though I may have if I'd had the time).

This is Kaitlyn- I didn't have a good photo to go straight off of with her, so I had to use a few photos and sort of create a pose. Of the three I feel this one bares the closest resemblance to the real person, and I did the least amount of drafts on it.

I was glad to be able to give gifts like these, though as the guy who made them I already see the flaws in them- one of the main reasons I wanted to make these was because my family had some older portraits I had done when I was about 20 or so up on the wall, and they were hideous. This will at least hold me over for a little while.
-eef

Reverend Mofo

2007-12-04T23:18:00.000-08:00

I went to the PDX drink n' draw a few weeks ago. We did these posters, where you draw your character in the center, then everyone else does their rendition of that character around it. I picked Reverend Mofo, the foul mouthed preacher monkey from Chumble Spuzz. I really love what these guys came up with. I am still pretty shy among these artists, some of them are really good- and the interesting thing is, I have been around other serious artists very little in my life. I think, especially, the fact that I never went to art school makes me really nervous around more seasoned artists.

It's pretty much how it is anytime you try to join into a group of people you don't know, you wonder at first if you really are going to fit in. Whatever comes of it, I love the fact that I can go to a bar downtown and meet up with about 15 artists, many by trade, and others published comic creators, and draw together. Growing up in Coos Bay, any time I went out to a bar to draw, people just looked at me funny.

Artists who contributed: Ron Chan, Ryan Hill, Erika Moen, Jon Siruno, Amy Mebberson, Rich Ellis, Randall Kirby, James Ratcliffe, Steve Sylvain, Cat Ellis, and Matt something... and the rest who's names I don't know. I copied these names from Ron Chan's email, admittedly.

A few new drawings

2007-11-30T05:33:00.000-08:00

These are few of the digital ink drawings I did for a client recently for eskimo mythology. I drew these and inked them fully on my computer with a Wacom tablet.

The first one is a shapeshifting demon that takes on the image of a child. The second is a tickling demon. The third is called Amarok, and is a HUGE wolf, which I based off of a bear's body.

I used three different techniques on each drawing, that's why I think they each have their own look to them. The Shapeshifter, I wanted to look more human than I was capable of drawing freehand, so I used a 3D modeling program and posed a figure, and added lighting. I used that as reference for the drawing.

On the tickling demon, I did just freehand, and went a little bit more cartoony then any of the other characters. I figured he's a tickler, so cartoony works for him.

On Amarok, I had a photo of a bear which I sketched lightly over the top of to get the shapes of the bear's body, then I referenced some wolf photos to make my bear/wolf hybrid. The client had me add some ravens to show the scale of how big this creature is. I have to say, I think this is one of the most frightening beats I have have ever drawn.

Unlettered Pages

2007-11-26T04:27:00.001-08:00

So here's the last 4 pages, no lettering. I'll just kind of give the run down here since you get no insanely tiny dialog to try to read.

Suddenly, two thugged out homeboy crack dealers see their car is being stolen. They are the rightful owners of this junky car, and it is very valuable to them, because the seats are stuffed full of crack. (which is what has exploded all over Kyle). Kyle, of course, tries to threaten them with his fake squirt gun, and as usual they aren't convinced and they start shooting.

Moon is sort of the guy who is all gung ho about the crime fighting. He is a goof ball for the camera, until it's time to pull out his gun ("sweet cheeks") and serve up justice on the streets. As you can see, he tries to bail Kyle out, but he gets shot at too. It's at this point he realizes he is out of bullets again. A common theme for Moon in the comic would have been him rooting around his wallet and pockets and change jars for spare bullets. In this scene he hides behind the garbage cans (bullet proof of course), and rummages through his wallet trying to find a bullet.

So, the one thug is firing at An thony, while the loud mouth one with dreadlocks jumps on Kyle, pimp slapping the hell out of him, as he has crack in his eyes and is rolling down a hill in a crappy car. He begins wailing on the thug with the severed E-brake he recently snapped loose. What you don't see is that after this, Kyle takes out the thug with his trusty brick, which becomes his best friend through out the comic.

Meanwhile, I'm chasing the crack-head, who punched me, down a dirty alley way. I'm not doing so well with the whole running thing (I added that for character, in real life I run marathons while lifting weights and eating vegetables). Suddenly, the crack head opens a junky storage shed and a bunch of mangy street dogs start chasing me back down the alley way to the street.

How would it have ended? This scene? Well... the dogs run out and start to attack the thug with the gun. Kyle abandons the rolling vehicle and begins freaking out because he's all cracked out. He curls up on the floor of the Juggernaut holding the brick close to him. We kick at the dogs as we speed away... and the rolling car hits something explosive or messy. In the script it was the Red Cross bloodmobile, which rams into a gas station and blows up- then it rains blood. Maybe too much. We'll never know. That's that!
-eef

The Rest...

2007-11-26T04:04:00.000-08:00

Here's the last 6 pages from Code of the Juggernaut. I think I actually have some more, but they are not lettered. I'll try to post those next time.

I love how some of the art on this turned out. After Chumble Spuzz I became more free with my style and at the same time, tighter. I was more conscious of page composition, black areas, and expression. I had feared going back to an all-human book, because humans are the hardest thing there is to draw- but I feel like what I came up with for this project far exceeded any previous human characterizations I'd come up with.

I really wanted it to almost feel like a dark comedy film- in my mind it was sort of like Kevin Smith's slacker buddy dialog, comedically in the style of something like SuperBad, but with the sort of chaotic vigilanteism from Boondock Saints.

I wanted to base each character as much on his real character as much as I could. I wanted us to joke like we really do behind closed doors. I wanted all of our shortcomings to be laid out to laugh at, and our good qualities to be what wins the fight in the end. Ultimately the story was going to be more of a road-trip buddy movie. No success story, no big battle with evil. I still hope to tell it someday, but when I do I'll restart from the ground up.
-eef

More pages from COJ

2007-11-23T22:21:00.001-08:00

Here's the next 5 pages from Lunaractive: Code of the Juggernaut.

Code of the Juggernaut

2007-11-23T05:21:00.001-08:00

I started a graphic novel based on my band, Lunaractive, this summer. The plan was to release it as a web comic, 3 pages a week, until it ended- then after that make a collected book to be released by SLG. My plan was to get these pages going and then keep up with it while on tour. My only problem was I hadn't actually finished writing it, and I was getting stuck. Then, to make matters even worse, my computer died while I was on tour and was useless for a month and a half. When I finally got it fixed my deadline to finish Chumble Spuzz was upon me, so I had to ditch it. This ended up being a good thing, because the band broke up anyway, and in all honesty- the story I truly want to tell probably wouldn't work with the band together. Too many eyes on it for me to tell the story I really wanted to tell. I realized this while on tour- the story of the band I have in me is not this one, and it made me hope to find a way out of being stuck with it.

But, not to let the art completley go to waste, I am going to put the pages here in my blog. I'll release them 5 at a time. Here's the first five. The book was to be titled "Lunaractive: Code of the Juggernaut". I apologize that the lettering is too small to read easily, but I don't have to time to fix it. I also want to warn you that this does not resolve, it cuts off mid-action at about page 18 or so. If you can't handle that, don't read it, because you will never know the end. This is it. Enjoy...
-eef

A few sketches...

2007-11-18T06:56:00.000-08:00

I felt like dumping a few sketches onto the blog to spruce things up a bit. These are from my current sketch book. It's a 10" x10" square pad, hard cover with ring binding. I have been doing a lot of ink sketching in it, and generally trying to use bits of color here and there to keep it interesting. I hope to publish a sketch book with a lot of the art from it, but I wanted to share a few samples just for fun. These were all done using Faber Castle brush pens.

This first one is a couple a "squiggle creatures." I had my little sister Megan draw a couple squiggly lines in my sketch book and then I turned them into these creatures. I have a lot of these in my book, I am almost thinking about doing a whole book of them, because some of them have turned out really cool.

This next one I did at the Portland Drink n' Draw about two months ago. I was really intimidated by all the good artists there and was drawing really bad... then I loosened up and made this zombie guy. I really like him.

This last one is this lizard creature I made up. It may be showing up in a future book I'm developing. I have a series of these little guys in my sketch book, but this one is my favorite.

Ramalamadingdong

2007-11-11T18:49:00.000-08:00

I thought of a really dumb cartoon and decided to just draw it and post it and be done with it, so bam. Here it is.

First comic submission letter of my ife...

2007-11-11T18:32:00.001-08:00

I was digging through my shoe box of memorable pieces of paper the other day. I just finished putting the entire Chumble Spuzz book together and I did a little thing in it where I talked about getting my first ever rejection letter from Dan Vado, SLG president- who ended up becoming the first publisher to pick up my work 10 years later.

Here's the letter. It's rather embarrassing. I was 17 and so ready to become a big, rich, famous comic artist... (click for larger version)

I guess it's typical of a person at that age to think like this. I was living in a small town and I had no idea how big the world, and the industry actually were. I just figured because my high school thought my comics were funny I would be an overnight hit.

It's funny looking back to those days. If I was to go back in time and tell myself where I am at right now, my old self would be way more excited about it then I am right now. Not that I'm not excited, but my 17 year old self would still have the mystery that's lost when you actually experience a thing.

-eef

It Begins

2007-10-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

Word up fools. This is my art blog. This is where I will talk more about art and not so much about my poop or my personal problems or other people's poop or anything besides art. Like poop. So stay tuned, when I'm no busy as hell I'll post some shiz-wizzle here that should be pretty nifty.
-eef